Darth Vader, Freddy Krueger, and Voldemort all have one thing in common — they’re villains with disfigured faces. In Wonder Woman, Dr. Poison (played by Elena Anaya, who is not facially-disfigured herself) plays a similar role as one of the film's main villains as a character who wears a prosthetic mask to cover her visibly scarred face.

There's no doubting Wonder Woman's importance for representation of women both in front and behind the camera, especially considering that it smashed records at the box office. But along with the good, there's some aspects of the film that could have been better. Wonder Woman has already been criticized for its lack of representation for women of color, and with the character of Dr.Poison the film also handles disability representation equally poorly. Dr. Poison falls into the easy trope that suggests disability — and in this case, specifically facial disfigurement — means that a character is evil. We never find out Dr. Poison’s backstory and whether her facial scarring caused her to become a villain or happened after she already was one, but the message is the same: We should be afraid of people whose faces and bodies are different from our own.

Ariel Henley, a writer with Crouzon Syndrome, tells Teen Vogue, “The idea that to be beautiful means to be good and to be disfigured means to be evil is not new. It’s a really tired, unoriginal trend in the movie industry, and only perpetuates damaging beliefs about individuals with facial differences.”

That trope is exactly what plays out in Wonder Woman. The film’s hero and titular Wonder Woman, Diana (played by Gal Gadot), is physically fit, able, and beautiful. Her romantic love interest who also acts as a sidekick, Steve Trevor (portrayed by Chris Pine), is equally attractive and able-bodied.

Showing facial disfigurement as a signifier for evil has consequences for real people with facial disfigurements. “People with facial differences are often discriminated against because of our appearance, and rarely given a voice and accurate representation in mainstream media,” says Henley.

However, this is far from the first time this trope has appeared. The Wicked Witch of the West in The Wizard of Oz has a green face and a noticeable wart. Darth Vader has a scarred body that he hides underneath a black cloak and mask. Bruce Banner literally turns into a green monster when he becomes The Hulk, and although he’s not a villain, he struggles with the urge to destroy every time he undergoes the transformation. Tom Riddle is attractive when he begins learning about dark magic at Hogwarts, but his journey to becoming Voldemort also makes him facially disfigured; many online memes poke fun at the fact that he has snake-like nostrils.

In terms of Wonder Woman, toward the end we see Dr. Poison without her mask for the first time. In the scene, she’s in a state of vulnerability that we haven’t previously experienced with her character. Ares, the god of war who has spent centuries trying to rid the world of humans, is prompting Diana to turn her back on humanity and offers Diana the opportunity to kill Dr. Poison and join him as a god. As Diana considers her decision, Dr. Poison’s mask falls from her face in the wind, revealing her scarred and disfigured face. We’re meant to feel sympathy for the character and reconsider her villainy, and it’s clear that Diana does as well, since she lets Dr. Poison live.

These kinds of “facial reveal” moments are common in visual media where a character has a facial disfigurement or other disability. In Wonder Woman, the scene is meant to encourage sympathy, but it’s clear that audience is still supposed to be shocked by the sight of Dr. Poison’s face, since earlier in the film, we see a photograph of her before she was scarred. The movie sets us up to spend time wondering how she became disfigured, as if disability is an exciting or terrifying mystery and not a facet of a person’s lived experiences.

Diana ultimately says that she stands by humanity because she believes in love — something that’s visually shown when she’s looking at a photograph of Steve in present time — but the physical removal of Dr. Poison’s mask, and her disfigurement in general, isn’t necessary for this character development. It gives the audience the impression that if we don’t see disability and disfigurement as inherently evil, we must see it as something worth pitying, even when the disabled person has been nothing but villainous. We aren’t supposed to come to conclusions about Dr. Poison based on her actions in the film, but instead based on the way her face appears.

The idea that to be beautiful means to be good and to be disfigured means to be evil is not new. It’s a really tired, unoriginal trend in the movie industry, and only perpetuates damaging beliefs about individuals with facial differences.

Henley adds, “There were so many opportunities for Dr. Poison’s story to be interesting, for her role to be about more than her facial difference, but these threads simply weren't explored.”

Even when the media chooses to tackle facial disfigurement in a positive way, as with the upcoming movie Wonder (based on the book by the same name), people with facial disfigurements are left out of the conversation. Wonder follows the story of Auggie, a ten-year-old boy with a craniofacial condition who starts mainstream school for the first time. The creators of Wonder chose to cast Jacob Tremblay, an actor without a facial difference, in the role of Auggie, and instead prosthetics and makeup will be used to make Tremblay appear to be disfigured. The film would have been the perfect opportunity to cast a facially disfigured actor and break down the problematic trope that disability is a negative experience. Shows like ABC’s Speechless have been hailed for casting a disabled actor in a disabled role (Micah Fowler, who plays JJ DiMeo, has cerebral palsy just like his character does) instead of “Cripping Up” actors and erasing opportunities for disabled actors.

When we pigeonhole disabled characters into basic roles that are easily defined, such as sympathetic and pitiable or villainous and evil, we’re reinforcing the idea that disabled people don’t live full, meaningful lives the same way non-disabled people do. We need more media that offers a diverse perspective on disability and facial disfigurement, and doesn’t just boil our vast experiences down to a plot point.